Balkan's integration processes: history and postmodernity

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to highlight the attempts of the Balkan regional integration in the twentieth century and at the beginning of the XXIst century. The research methodology is based on general scientific (analysis, synthesis), special and historical (historical and genetic, historical and typological, historical and comparative) methods. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that for the first time in Ukrainian historiography, the distinctive essence of the Balkan integration projects of the modern and postmodern era has been shown. The Balkan region occupies a special place in European history. Various civilization influences intersect in the Balkans, and trade routes from Europe to the Middle East have traditionally passed. The uneven historical development of the Balkan peoples led to the severity of the nation-states formation and the dominance of conflicting internal regional and external interests in the Balkans. The Conclusion. The conflict potential of Balkan history was due to the clash of ideas of “great” state formations in the form of “Greater Serbia”, “Greater Albania”, “Greater Serbia”, “Greater Macedonia”. An attempt to resolve these contradictions on an international basis was an attempt to implement the Yugoslav project. This project had two different implementation attempts. After World War I, Yugoslavism was embodied in the format of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After World War II, a more successful attempt at international integration was made in the form of Yugoslav federalism. However, exogenous processes overturned the achievements of endogenous regional integration. The implementation of the European integration project of the Balkan countries depends on the readiness of the European Union to accept them and on the readiness of the Balkan countries to become part of the European Union. The European integration of the Balkan countries raises the question of the European Union borders. Turkey remains on the verge of civilization influences. Turkey’s accession to the European Union is of strategic global importance. The qualitative characteristics of the European Union depend on the solution of this issue. The EU does not synchronize the accession process of the Balkan countries with the negotiation process with Turkey. It is impossible to do that, because Turkey is more than all the six Balkan countries that emerged after the breakup of Yugoslavia.